Barbarian
by xTitania
Summary: Based off of The Lady and the Tiger, a story in 500 AD taking place in Rome. The tale of a man who became a woman's pawn in a game that was beyond his tiny world.
1. The Princess and the Slave

**Barbarian**

She arched against me, allowing the silky cloth of her dress to slide against my skin. I swallowed hard, turning my face from her, burying my head in that wild mass of hair. She rubbed up and down my arms, molding her fingers over my muscle - a furtively sexual act imperceptible to a casual observer, I knew, less she would not have done it. My hands clenched into fists by my side, my fingernails digging half moons into my palms. She brushed her lips across the stubble of my beard on my cheek, rasping her tender flesh against the coarseness of mine. I felt her smile, the fleeting whisper of her lips molding against my skin. She laughed silently at me. I knew it, knew that she found me amusing. Inane. I was.

"Do you want me?" she whispered in that infuriatingly enticing, cultured voice, drawing one claw-tipped finger down my cheek.

That voice. So seductive. So cruel. My eyes slid shut helplessly, my body shuddering. I could not help how I felt, how I reacted around her. How I thought of her, only of her, an incessant cycle. I hated it. Hated her.

"Answer me." Her voice cracked over me like a whip, a leash round my tongue forcing me to speak.

"Yes." My voice croaked out the words, parting with them despondently.

She laughed aloud at that, a throaty purr of pure, feminine pleasure. She delighted in her power over me. I could feel her cat-like satisfaction thick against my skin, coating me. It was all a game to her. I knew this. Still I refused to look at her, instead staring down at the tawny locks of her hair. I knew that she was gazing at me. I felt her eyes upon my skin, burning through my flesh. I knew that she contemplated ordering me to look at her. And I knew that she would not. In her mind, if she ordered me to look at her, she would have lost. She would have reverted to using her power. It was a game. In that lay my sanctuary, for if I gazed upon that heartbreaking face this moment, I would lose all control. And then she would have me killed.


	2. The Arena

The memories passed through my mind like water; simple, meaningless distractions to busy my mind. The cheer of the crowd was growing louder. It reverberated through the darkness of the room I was shut in beneath the coliseum, a restless rhythm created by the masses. My body hummed with it, hummed with anxiety, with fear. I was shaking. A small droplet of sweat dripped off my nose.

"Do you believe… do you believe we will… live?" A high-pitched, reedy voice asked.

I started at the sound, violently drawing my sword from its sheath. I searched the darkness with my eyes, blinking rapidly, my vision blurred by the vigor of my shaking. Something small and dirty scurried from me, sprawling across the floor. I could vaguely make out two emaciated arms fly to cover a white smear of a face before it spilled into a shaft of light splitting the shadows. I gaped at it, repulsed. Every inch of the thing was covered in dirt or dust, its torn clothing hanging from the gaunt frame in yellowed shreds. His skeletal legs extended from him like sticks thrown carelessly across the floor, the bones straining against the leathery skin, its true color disguised by grime. His hair fell limp against his skull in tangled knots, so ground with dirt that the true color was unrecognizable. His teeth, poking through the pale gauntness of his lips, were twisted and rotten, ink black and speckled with aged yellow. His eyes, young and scared, peeked through his fingers.  
I took a shaky step back, gagging on air and unable to vomit as there was nothing in my stomach. I fell back into a wall, my jaw working reflexively. So young. Barely a man. Dimly I watched the thing drop its hands to the floor and crab-scuttle backwards until it hit a wall, feeling all the while as if I weren't really there. It felt his way up the stone to stand, never taking it's eyes off me, flattening itself against the rock, as far from me as possible. The clatter of my sword hitting the ground woke me to the world. Shock. I was going into shock. I knew of the condition… she… had mentioned it, while I was I anointing her with scents…


	3. Poison

"Do you know what this is?" Her voice slid over me hauntingly, taunting me.

Oh, but I knew this game. I had played this one before. One of many battles in a war still raging between us. She was asking me my opinion on something. To give it, I must first look at what she offered. To look, I would be giving in. And so she found a way to force me to look at her without actually speaking an order. It was a small win, but a win nonetheless. And I had no delusions. I was a puppet, a toy to her. And when I no longer interested her, when I was no longer a challenge, she would rid herself of me. And so I could not afford these small losses.

"No, I do not." My eyes remained focused on the elixir of perfumes before me.

Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw a frown tug at the corners of her mouth. "But you have not looked at what I offer. Do you insult me so?" She enunciated the words with careful anticipation.

"No, my liege." My tone was low, subservient. Emotionless. When I raised my eyes to her, I saw a small scowl marring her perfect face. As beautiful as the gods. She always had been.

"Try to seem more enthusiastic." Her tone was sulky. She held up a vial full of clear, thick liquid. "This, my dear _boy_, is poison. Do you know what that is?"

I eyed the vial carefully. "Yes."

"Good." She said curtly. "Do you know what kind?"

I hesitated. Was this a test? "No."

She smiled at me. A slow smile. A dangerous smile. "It is a neural potion." She raised the vial to dangle it above flat expanse of my exposed stomach, where I lied upon her bed as she had placed me. "Made from a concentration of the stingers of jellyfish." She swished the liquid. "One slip. The body stops working. It is, in essence, paralyzed." She tilted the vial. The solution hovered at the lip, threatening to spill over. I felt her eyes on my face, eager for the emotions I would not let her see, but I could not remove my eyes from the vial. "For a small amount of time." She gave a shrug, little more than a ripple of her shoulders. It was enough. The liquid spilled over the lip of the vial, dropping through air towards my unprotected flesh. She did not notice, too wrapped up in her serenade of the potion. "Enough time." The droplet splashed against skin. I was trembling, I realized. "It is only dangerous if it is indigested." She added, prompting me to meet her gaze with mine. Maybe she had noticed.

Her eyes were piercing, absorbing every iota of my fear, my desperation. It was the first time I had ever seen her so… alive. She drew in a breath, seeming almost surprised at the fullness of her reaction to mine. "The doctors think you're going into shock; ." She continued, "Maybe an allergic reaction from the food you've eaten… else wise, it's as harmless as I am." In a swift movement, she threw the remainder of the liquid at my face. I flinched from her, stumbling backwards, my mind numb with fear, my vocal cords paralyzed. I turned my face away, every inch of me itching to wipe the fluid from my flesh, my skin crawling from the contact. Her laughter rang in my ears.


	4. Gladiator

I stumbled into the light, the boom of the crowd rumbling in my ears. The sun was at its zenith, a shining beacon that blinded me, leaving me defenseless at the feet of the masses. Of the world. From the sightless cave of darkness to the blinding glare of day, I was as helpless as a hare, trapped by the hounds. Suddenly, like a wave of silence, the roar subsided. The clapping, stomping, yelling, everything fell at once, as if the earth had stopped in its rotation to demand attention. Yet still, I wheeled about the pit like a caged deer, bashing myself mindlessly against the iron bars of my cell. Numb, mindless fear. "See how the insolent wretch squirms before us, a child caught in his impudence!" The voice was raw power, designed to invoke fear and mindless obedience. I staggered about my cell and tripped over a dune of sand, the small pebbles scouring my pampered skin. Our games were psychological, not physical. The salty tang of blood flooded my mouth and mixed with the gritty texture of sand "Does he deserve to live?" The voice was answered by a boom of catcalls and boos. I raised myself odd of the sand and spat the gritty blood from my mouth. "You have touched my daughter." His voice was held what could have been mistaken for a cool rage. But I knew that they felt nothing. "You, a common... a common servant boy. You have felt royal flesh." His voice parodied rage, disgust. I was not surprised. It was just a game to him, too.

He knew his daughter. And he knew as well as I did that the only reason that she was playing with the likes of me was as a defiant act against him. I was a pawn between the two. She used me to act against he father, and he used me to trap her in her game. And so he had won. He had caught us – I, her servant boy, touching her arm. Touching her skin. Royal flesh. She had been enraged, of course. She had not wanted to be found yet. She would have preferred to flaunt this abomination before a crowd, displayed for all to see, to displace her father's indominatable power. But he had ruined that for her.

"Your fate shall be determined by the only one who can. You." I blinked up towards the voice, my vision blurred. I saw a dim shape, nothing more than a stick figure in the distance, turn and point. I followed his finger with my gaze. My breath left me in a sigh. Of course. Two colossal, bronze doors dominated the curved wall of the colisseum. I had only one option left to me. I looked to the Princess.


	5. The King

"Well, my dear." I sat down on my throne, arranging my robes around me as was properly befitting for a king. "He looks to you for guidance. What would you have him pick? The lady? Or the tiger?"

My daughter gritted her teeth together, staring straight before her to the pawn which I had so neatly stolen from her, fury radiating from her in waves. "It matters not, as I have no choice in the matter. He chooses his doors. And you have made it impossible for me to discern who lies behind them." Her defiance was admirable, but hardly needed.

"Mistake me for a despot, but never for a fool. You, my daughter, have figured out who lies behind each door. I could not have stopped you. Your only decision, now, is which door you want him to pick." I smiled at her. My knowing smile. The one which she has so aptly inherited. "The Lady, where he will find happiness and joy completely independent of you, and he will live, a slap in my face with every breath he takes." I watched her closely as I uttered the lines, my voice shrewd. I did not care. She had seen me at my worst, as I had her. "Or maybe you'll pick the Tiger. A gruesome death… a death which I have forced upon him, and upon you. Must that not grate on your nerves, just a little?"

She clenched her jaw, swaying a bit in her seat. She looked nauseous. I took private satisfaction in that. It had been a long while since I had been able to catch my daughter. She believed herself cleverer than I. More capable. Capable enough to take the throne. She'd even attempted once or twice, pitiful attempts with poisons and the like. But I was still king. And it did her well to remember that.

"Choose, my daughter."

A twitch of her finger. The boy opened the door.


End file.
